I call BS on this. Doing more in less time means you can do even more than before and kill your competition.
There is nothing but upside in advancing technologically for pretty much every industry.
And while they could hypothetically get more clients, this aspect of the business is based on relationships (and is a burden for senior partners). Partners know that if associates are more efficient, there's a chance they would lose money, and a chance they could win more new clients and add those in too. But at the end of the day, that just puts them roughly where they were before — with fully-occupied associates, and a book of business that is the same size. For partners, it's all risk and no reward.
I repeat - there is zero downside to modernizing and using tech for any business.
You have to adapt and figure it out... before your competition does. Perhaps that means changing your billing model or something - whatever, figure it out.
All of this "no automation - no technology" chanting is wild to see.
Majority of what a law firm does is low skill or no skill. Copying documents, looking up case law and citations, filling in documents from templates, etc. None of this requires highly skilled labor, and a lot of it can be automated or made easier for fewer people to accomplish the same output.
• description of task
• time spent on task (in 6 min increments)
• name of person who did the task
• billing rate of said person
• total cost for the task
Unless a firm that "fires half its staff" also doubles its billing rate, it will not make more money. And good luck to the firm that tries to double its billing rate. It is very difficult to convince clients that you're worth that much (or that you should be getting all the benefit from advances in technology).
I'm not saying firms shouldn't make changes, I'm saying they really don't want to. Eventually they will, just like they eventually got rid of typing pools. But it took much longer than it would have if the incentive structure in firms were different. They are married to the billable hour.
Filling out standard documents and such can (and often is) charged by the job. Some common case types even are billed by the job, instead of hourly.
Majority of firms do not handle complex cases that require deep knowledge and skill. We can compare this to accounting automation, such as Intuit/Quickbooks. Are they for every business? No - but for a ton of standard businesses they are a perfect fit, and Intuit makes a ton of money in the process.
This resistance to modernizing will kill some firms in the process.
So many standard things are handled with flat rates these days. You're not the first one needing to incorporate, or respond to an ADA complaint, etc. These are cookie-cutter things, and can be handled very quickly by the firm.
So - accordingly - they charge a flat rate. You don't get a choice usually.
Very few firms handle complex, specialized issues that require unknown amounts of time. Rate billing is for those situations.
No client is demanding to be billed every 6 minutes, having no idea what the ordeal's cost will amount to. That is compelled by the firm, because of the unknowns involved.
There are a few law firms that are heavily automated. But they are mostly larger, class action, pay per result, type law firms vs your standard law firm.
If the firm can handle clients in 1/2 the time, they can take on more clients. They don't have to advertise themselves as being "better" or something.
Payroll, for all businesses, is a huge limiting factor on abilities. Which means, you can't just "staff up" and become larger overnight.
Not to mention, you might not require a small army of paralegals and secretaries anymore... fewer staff can get the same load accomplished.
It even opens the door to charging flat-rates for certain services, instead of by the 1/10th hour or whatever.
The point is, doing more in less time is always better... even if you decide to kick back and relax with your newfound time.